Jeanene Williams, who is running as an independent candidate for the Western Australian Division of Hasluck in the forthcoming federal election has expressed dismay over the parliamentary report into the Religious Discrimination Bill.
Williams, who is a transgender woman said she was deeply concerned by the recommendations in the report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. It was one of two reports released on Friday, alongside a report from the Legal and Constitution Affairs committee. Both reports recommended passage of the controversial Religious Discrimination Bill without significant change.
Williams said it alarming that many of the concerns raised about the bill appeared to have been dismissed by both major parties.
“Watching both parties support this bill, while acknowledging that the statements of belief provisions are still bad, but only offering to ‘work across the parliament to fix’ it, doesn’t make me feel safer as a trans woman seeking medical services.”
Williams said that vulnerable groups in society do not trust that both parties can cooperate to find exactly the right words to render the statement of belief provisions less harmful. The aspiring politician highlights that it has been recognised that perceived discrimination can be as damaging as actual discrimination.
“Take my own example for instance, as a Transgender woman procedures that are considered as medically necessary by the World Health Organisation are considered as cosmetic surgery in Australia. That means I have no options under the public health system and under the new bill, private hospitals may be able to refuse me treatment based on their religious belief.” Williams said.
“Many people do not trust that religiously based health operators will make all treatment options available or that they will totally succeed in avoiding discrimination against certain elective surgeries.
“A majority of major private health operators in WA are religious based or owned and nobody knows exactly how statements of religious beliefs by health operators will affect their ability to treat LGBTIQIA+ and other minority patients.
Williams said it was disappointing that with the two party system we still can’t agree on what a human right looks like.
Jeanene Williams is running as an independent candidate for the Division of Hasluck in the 2022 election, she lives in neighbouring Chittering.
The seat, which was established in 2001, was initially held by Labor, before falling to the coalition at the 2004 election, in 2007 it swung back to Labor, before being won by current Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt in 2010. Whyatt has held on to the seat for four terms and will recontest it at the 2022 election.
Williams came out as transgender when she was 49 year old, with her proudly supportive partner of over 25 years and her amazing daughter, she is asking the people of Hasluck to join her in bringing diversity, respect, equity, accountability and maturity back into our system of government.
The candidate says she believes that individual achievement and success shouldn’t come at the cost to our most vulnerable communities. Instead, she sees diversity as a way to bring people together, to make Australia creative and productive again to meet the difficult challenges ahead.
Fighting for environmental policies that create new jobs and manufacturing start-ups that stay up are among her priorities if elected to parliament, alongside affordable and safer childcare, and to improve aged and disability care training for multicultural seniors who are missing out.
Follow Jeanene Williams for Hasluck on Facebook.
OIP Staff
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